Injustice 2 Mobile – First thoughts

Injustice 2 Mobile was released yesterday and I felt compelled to write a first thoughts review on it. I played it for a good 3 hours yesterday. I have to say the potential and the ceiling is very high for this game. With a new release, there are bound to be problems. Injustice 2 is no exception to this with some game breaking issues.

To put into perspective I was playing on my Samsung Tab S2 9.7 inch display sporting 3 gigs of RAM (1 gig requirement for the game, keep this in mind!) and a fancy Exynos 5433 (1.9GHz Quad + 1.3GHz Quad) processor. I have more than enough RAM and power. Now on to the initial review.

Once downloaded, I was very anxious to get going and this is where things took a turn for the bad. The initial opening credits crashed twice. My first thought was “Okay maybe a restart is required since sometimes after new installs a reboot is recommended”. Once rebooted, I fired up the game again; this time making it past the opening credits (yay!). Issue number two, the opening tutorial where you play as Batman to learn the basics. I got through the first part of the tutorial with no issues. It wasn’t until the end of the tutorial, when you play as Batman and Harley, where you get to use your Ultimate move for the first time. This once again crashed my game THREE times. It would get to the end of the move and crash. Frustration starts to kick in a bit here but I realize the game has only been out a few hours. Give it a break Ryan, so I did and needless to say I eventually got past the tutorial and then the game started to load the interface of the main menu. I will give you readers ONE guess what happened next. CRASH. Had to redo the tutorial AGAIN. At this point it was my fifth time going through it.

Once the main menu finally loaded, you come to a rather cluttered interface. The game starts with the usual free hero chest which is Wonder Woman. Now you have your team assembled – Batman, Harley and Wonder Woman. If you registered for the game, here is where you will also acquire Catwoman (who is awful but she can be sent on “Operations” with no real downside which is nice.) She can be found in your mailbox on the game.

The game itself is laggy and the fighting almost has a predetermined feel too it, even though it obviously isn’t. The fighting is a bit clunky and feels awkward at times. It is also unresponsive to some commands you issue. Those that have played it or are playing it may know what I am talking about. It’s the basic energy based system where you need a certain amount of energy to play the next Campaign Mission. Now, I will breakdown the game modes.

Campaign Missions – This is the bread and butter of the game. It’s a series of 5 missions, then a boss fight. If you get three stars on the boss fight you can instant complete it from there on out to reap the rewards. Instant meaning it sims the fight for you but you need sim chips in order to do this.

Operations – Here you send your extra characters out on timed missions to complete quests and gain coins and items. Times vary on the mission and certain restrictions apply to sending characters out on certain missions.

Arena – This one is self-explanatory. Fight against other players in a PVP combat mode and rank up the ladder to get better prizes.

Story – This is where the heavy spoilers come into play for the actual Injustice 2 console game. If you are awaiting the console version I would avoid this part completely. It works very similar to Campaign.

Leagues – Not much info on this yet, it is not out yet with a “Coming Soon” tag on it.

Challenges – Another should be self-explanatory mode. Complete challenges, get rewarded.

Resource Missions – Here you will acquire different resources that you are going to need to make your characters better and the rewards are different everyday so be sure to check it every day!

Each character has their own set of equipment that can be leveled up and acquired by doing the different modes above; just like the console version is going to have. It’s a nice touch because it allows a more custom feel to the characters you are using and like to use.

In the settings there’s also a cool achievement section, which is just used as a little incentive and helps track your progress. Also, in the settings you can run diagnostics, rate the game and access customer support.

Final thoughts:

Cons – Heavy pay to win, game breaking issues, lag, clunky fighting, energy based missions, time based missions, insane amount of Hero Shards to get new heroes. Also, there is a star based rank up system which requires hero shards to advance to the next tier, and an expensive store. This keeps me from giving this a strong review even though I’d really love to.

Pros – Great list of DC characters, really cool ultimate moves, fully custom characters with different equipment options, helps those of us waiting for the console game, story is of course fantastic, animations and videos are great.

-MAJOR UPDATE –

While writing this review, I decided to grab my tablet and check to see if I missed anything and my game was COMPLETELY ERASED. All three hours from yesterday GONE with no reasoning. I tried to close the app, reboot and restart and it’s all gone. I am glad I decided to not spend money on this and from this action, never will. Take it for what it is and don’t spend any money, play this game and wait for console. Once console is released forget about this game.